Nikolaos Laskaris and the beginning of the end for adaptation ‘to our customs’ in the context of the translation of French comedies

Abstract

THE PRESENT PAPER aims to investigate a series of French comedies translated by the comic playwright Nikolaos Laskaris with the method of the ‘adaptation to our customs’, a common practice applied to the translations of Molière and Goldoni, since the last decade of the 18th century. The same method, however, is still in use up to the end of the 19th century by important playwrights such as Laskaris. The practice seems to fade out at the turn of the century; Laskaris then tends towards a more accurate translation, although never absolutely faithful. This transition from adaptation to translation seems to bother him in practical ways, in a period in which bourgeois emancipation has become a reality for the Greek state, while European mores and customs have turned to be even more familiar to Athenian spectators.